One of the partner schools is a mixed High School, just outside Grahamstown in South Africa. The school, a grammar school established in 1938, has an intake of pupils from the local villages and townships.

In 2001 the school won 21 networked computers in an international competition. Students and staff have access to email and the use of the Internet and have taken part in live video-conferencing with a school in the Netherlands.

The school has a high profile, with articles about its activities in drama, science and sport on the Internet. It is currently twinned with a school in Rome through the Junior Global Challenge.

Introductory emails from South Africa

Hi friends, We are students from Nathaniel Nyaluza High School. This school is found in Grahamstown, (within latitude 33 0 S and longitude 260 E). Grahamstown is in South Africa, we are in the southern hemisphere. Our country is divided into 9 provinces, our province is Eastern Cape. Nathaniel Nyaluza is the oldest high school for blacks in the Eastern Cape. We are two hours ahead of GMT.

Some of us are doing grade 10 and others grade 11. Our ages range between 15 and 17 years old. We do the following subjects: Geography, Mathematics, Physical Science, Biology, History, Xhosa and English Languages.

Our school starts at 7:45 am. We go straight to the assembly to pray and listen to the announcements. Then we attend our lessons from 08:00 am. Nyaluza H S is a mixed school situated in township, with 700 students. All students speak the same language but our teachers are different ethnic groups. Our school won the computers and we are involved in other projects.

Our Community Profile

Grahamstown is a small town, which has the attractions for tourists and the most known heritage sites. The greatest of them all is National Settlers Monument and the other one is the most unforgettable event where the blacks fought for their land with the white settlers and the war was held next to our school which is called Egazini monument (the blood field). Grahamstown also hosts annual events in March and in June festivals. The first one is for the Science festival (SciFest) and National Arts Festival some people of our country and other people from other countries gather together in order to make this Arts Festivals possible. A lot of crafts are sold and drama shows.

In Grahamstown we have township schools that are situated in our community and we also have private which don't belong to the government and our tertiary institution is Rhodes University, Grahamstown Tech, Gadra education. And we have three languages Xhosa, English, Afrikaans. Us as the members of this project we are Xhosa speakers and our favourite is food maize meal with sour milk (Amasi) and here in our culture we like to respect our ancestors as Xhosa people and in order to do that properly we cook alcohol and this alcohol is known as Umqomboti. In Grahamstown we also experience lot of immigrations and we have lots of refugees from other countries.

Extracts of emails from South Africa

"My country South Africa is famous with its beautiful wild animals and its beautiful beaches. There are many places to travel to like Jo'burg, Cape Town and Durban. ... My hometown is Grahamstown."

"Grahamstown is a very beautiful town. There are lots of places of interest. These places are Rhodes University, Museums and Cathedrals. There are also many stores around our town.

Bisho is our capital town in the province. It is a beautiful town.

There are different nationalities. They are Xhosas, Indians, Whites and Coloureds."

"In my country there are many different races of people like Xhosa, Zulus etc. Me, I am Xhosa. In Xhosa when you are 18 years you go to the bush to become a man. You must stay for several days, maybe four weeks, in order to be a man, and that's how you become a man in Xhosa."

"I like to do poems in my school. In my school we do OBE, it means outcomes based education. We learn English, maths, science, history, Xhosa, arts and culture. We are 45 in our class: 24 girls and 25 boys."

"We want to tell you about V's day .... She wakes up and she eats her porridge then goes to school and starts to study with all her friends. Her favourite subjects are mathematics and science. When she gets home she cleans her home, washes dishes and after that she goes to the 4 o'clock practice of music at church. She comes back at 6 o'clock and does her homework."

"My favourite food is African salad or Mphokoqo" ...."Our food is samp (crushed corn eaten with beans) and umphokoqo (maize porridge)" .... "The food of the holiday (New Year) is also to eat braai meat (barbecued meat) and salads."